Essay

The decision of the Philadelphia Convention to submit the Constitution to state ratification conventions meant that Americans from all walks of life would be drawn into a wide-ranging public debate about its merits.

Teaching Resource

The relationship between the North and the South was tenuous when Andrew Jackson came to office in 1828. Ever since the Constitutional Convention of 1787, northerners and southerners had fought over slavery and tariffs. Each region wanted to make sure their economies were protected in the new Union. Several times states threatened to leave the Constitutional Convention and abandon the writing of the Constitution. By the end of the Convention, both sides had made significant compromises to the Constitution such as the...

Teaching Resource

This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance. Through a step-by-step process, students will acquire the skills to analyze any primary or secondary source material.

Lesson 1
Objective

Today students will participate as members of a critical thinking group and “read like a detective” in order to analyze the...